Some 1,900 faculty and staff at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have donated a record $13.68 million worth of their unused annual leave to the University in support of student financial aid and school advancement.
This marks an increase of more than 33 per cent from last year's donation of $10.25 million.
Collectively, the NTU employees gave 27,593 days of unused leave in 2021, compared to 20,145 days last year.
Among the 1,978 employees who donated this year, an average of 14 days of leave was pledged. Combining the leave donations from this year and last year, there were 900 employees who contributed a total of 30 days each, the maximum number of days allowable under the special programme, which is part of the University's annual Faculty and Staff Giving initiative.
This is the second year that NTU's Leave Redemption and Donation Exercise has taken place. The exercise started last year to enable employees to voluntarily channel their unused vacation leave towards an NTU fund of their choice.
Of the $13.68 million raised from the 2021 leave donation, $4.17 million is being channelled to the NTU Priorities Fund, with the balance being channelled to the NTU Wellbeing Fund and several college and school advancement funds.
Launched in April 2020 as part of NTU's University's COVID-19 relief package, the NTU Priorities Fund provides financial assistance to the neediest NTU students who are affected by COVID-19.
To date, 1,425 students have received financial assistance totalling more than $2 million from the University's COVID-19 relief package.
